Herbert George Blumer (March 7, 1900 – April 13, 1987) was an Americansociologist whose main scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methods of social research.[1] Believing that individuals create their own social reality through collective and individual action,[2] he was an avid interpreter and proponent of George Herbert Mead’s work on symbolic interactionism.[3] Blumer eventually became the leading symbolic interactionist of his time and wrote the book Symbolic Interactionism, which is known as the clearest theoretical statement of symbolic interactionism.[4] An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that the creation of social reality is a continuous process.[2] Blumer was most scrutinized for his negative critiques of positivistic social research.[3][5]

Blumer was born March 7, 1900 in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, with his parents. He moved to Webster Groves with his family in 1905 onto a farm, but his father commuted to St. Louis every day to run a cabinet-making business.[6] Blumer attended Webster Groves High School and later the University of Missouri from 1918 to 1922. Herbert Blumer was constantly being grounded in the world of economics and labor, insofar as having to drop out of high school to help his father’s woodworking shop. Moreover, during the summer, Blumer worked as a rustabout to pay for his college education. While studying undergraduate at the University of Missouri, Blumer was fortunate enough to work with Charles Ellwood, a sociologist, and Max Meyer, a psychologist. [7]

Upon graduating, Blumer secured a teaching position at the University of Missouri. Recently after, in 1925, he relocated to the University of Chicago, a university where he was greatly influenced by the social psychologist George Herbert Mead and sociologists W. I. Thomas and Robert Park.[8] Upon completing his doctorate in 1928, he accepted a teaching position at the University of Chicago, where he continued his own research under George Mead and became captivated with the prospects of examining the interactions between humans and the world.[9][10] Blumer taught at this institution from 1927-1952.[4]

Blumer was the secretary treasurer of the American Sociological Association from 1930–1935 and was the editor of the American Journal of Sociology from 1941-1952. In 1952, he moved from the University of Chicago and presided and developed the newly formed Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. During World War II, he had a role as an arbitrator for the national steel industry.[11] Blumer was appointed the first chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, a post he held until he retired in 1967. [12] In 1952, he became the president of the American Sociological Association and he received the association's award for a Career of Distinguished Scholarship in 1983.[3] Blumer served as the 46th president of the American Sociological Association and his Presidential Address was his paper "Sociological Analysis and the 'Variable'".[13] With Emeritus Professor status until 1986, Blumer continued to be actively engaged in writing and research until shortly before his death on April 13, 1987. [14]

Although Blumer devised the term symbolic interaction in 1937, the early development of this theoretical approach to social analysis is largely credited to the work of George Herbert Mead during his time at the University of Chicago.[2][18][19] Blumer played a key role in keeping the tradition of symbolic interactionism alive by incorporating it into his teachings at the University of Chicago. [20] Blumer presented his articles on symbolic interactionism in a single volume in which he conceptualized symbolic interaction into three main points:

Humans act towards things (including other individuals) on the basis of the meanings they have for them.[4][21]

There is a particular emphasis on the consciousness of actors as they interpret their actions.

It is important to recognize that the meaning or value of an object to one person may differ with another person- sociologists should not reduce human action to social rules and norms.

Blumer stresses this point because of the fear that our subjective meaning of our actions could be overshadowed by the norms and rules of society

The meaning of things arises out of the social interactions one has with one's fellows.[4]

The meaning of something is a social product, therefore it is not inherent in things.

Meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process a person uses in dealing with the things he or she encounters.[3][4][21][22][23]

Meanings are seen as a series of interpretive actions by the actor.

The actor gives objects meanings, act accordingly based on these meanings, and then revises the meanings to guide his future action.

The actor has an internal conversation with himself to determine the meanings, especially when encountering something out of the ordinary.[4]

Blumer believed that what creates society itself is people engaging in social interaction. It follows then that social reality only exists in the context of the human experience.[24] His theory of symbolic interaction, some argue, is thus closer to a theoretical framework (based on the significance of meanings[3][21] and the interaction between individuals[21]) than an applicable theory.[23]

According to Blumer's theory, interaction between individuals is based on autonomous action,[3] which in turn is based on the subjective meaning actors attribute to social objects and/or symbols.[3][18][19][23] Thus individual actors regulate their behavior based on the meaning they attribute to objects and symbols in their relevant situation.[3] Blumer theorized that assigning objects meaning is an ongoing, two-fold process. First, is the identification of the objects that have situational meaning. Second, is the process of internal communication to decide which meaningful object to respond to.[22] Acknowledging that others are equally autonomous, individuals use their subjectively derived interpretations of others (as social objects) to predict the outcome of certain behaviors, and use such predictive insight to make decisions about their own behavior in the hopes of reaching their goal.[23] Thus, when there is consensus among individual actors about the meaning of the objects that make up their situation, social coordination ensues.[3] Social structures are determined as much by the action of individual actors as they determine the action of those individuals.[24] Based on this, Blumer believed that society exists only as a set of potentials, or ideas that people could possibly use in the future.[25]

This complex interaction between meanings, objects, and behaviors, Blumer reiterated, is a uniquely human process because it requires behavioral responses based on the interpretation of symbols, rather than behavioral responses based on environmental stimuli.[18] As social life is a "fluid and negotiated process," to understand each other, humans must intrinsically engage in symbolic interaction.[19] Blumer criticized the contemporary social science of his day because instead of using symbolic interactionism they made false conclusions about humans by reducing human decisions to social pressures like social positions and roles. Blumer was more invested in psychical interactionism that holds that the meanings of symbols are not universal, but are rather subjective and are “attached” to the symbols and the receiver depending on how they choose to interpret them. [20]

The importance of thinking to symbolic interactionists is shown through their views on objects. [20] Blumer defined objects as the things "out there" in the world. The significance of objects is how they are defined by the actor. In other words, different objects have different meanings depending on the individual.

According to Herbert Blumer, the most valid and desirable social research is conducted through qualitative, ethnographic methodology. He persistently critiqued the idea that that the only form of valid knowledge is derived through a totally objective perspective.[3] Blumer believed that theoretical and methodological approaches to studying human behavior must acknowledge human beings as thinking, acting, and interacting individuals and also must employ that represent the humanly known, socially created, and experienced world. [26] As this directly challenges the thought process of traditional, positivism-based approach to sociological method, much controversy surrounds Blumer’s sociological approach to empirical research.[27]

Blumer believed that when positivistic methods were applied to social research, they created results that were ignorant to the empirical realities of the social world. Because people act towards the world based on the subjective meanings they attribute to different objects (symbolic interactionism), individuals construct worlds that are inherently subjective. Therefore "objective" analysis is intrinsically subjugated to the researcher's own social reality, only documents the researchers own grotesque personal assumptions about social interaction, and ultimately yields bias findings.[3][27] For a researcher to truly understand sociological phenomena, Blumer asserted, they must understand their subject’s subjective interpretations of reality.[27]

Following this logic, Blumer discounted social research that blindly applies methods that have been traditionally used in the natural sciences. Such quantitative, objective analysis, he argued, does not acknowledge the difference between humans and animals – specifically the difference in cognitive ability to consciously entertain opinions and to apply meanings to objects, both which enables humans to take an active role in shaping their world.[27] Because society is composed of interactions between individuals or "joint actions/transactions",[28] the only empirical reality is that which stems from human interaction. Therefore contextual understanding of human action is intrinsic to valid social research.[24]

Thus Blumer advocated for sociological research that sympathetically and subjectively incorporates the viewpoints of the subject, therefore pushing for a micro-sociological approach.[4] Concluding that there is little validity in research that attempted to understand the social world objectively, Blumer felt that objective interpretations of society are intrinsically bias to the researchers social location and thus have little empirical value.[27] To truthfully uncover the social realities of individuals different from one's self, an observer must be mindful of their framework and be open to different understanding of social reality.[3][27]

Blumer believed that society is not made up of macrostructures, but rather that the essence of society is found in microstructures, specifically in actors and their actions. These microstructures are not isolated, but consist of the collective action of combination, giving rise to the concept of joint action. Joint action is not just the sum of individual actions, but takes on a character of its own. Blumer did not reject the idea of macrostructures, but instead focused on the concept of emergence-our larger social structures emerge from the smaller. Blumer admitted that macrostructures are important, but that they have an extremely limited role in symbolic interactionism. Therefore, he argued that macrostructures are a little more than “frameworks” within which the really important aspects of social life (action and interaction) take place. Moreover, according to Blumer, macrostructures are important because they shape the situations in which individuals act and supply to actors a certain set of symbols that allow them to act. [20] Also, he did not deny systems such as culture and social order. In sum, Blumer said that large scale structures are the frameworks for what is crucial in society, action and interaction.[20] He is not denying that social structures influence our actions, just that they do not determine our actions.[4]

In 1952, Herbert Blumer became President of the American Sociological Association and his Presidential Address was his paper "Sociological Analysis and the 'Variable'.[29] In this paper, Blumer addresses the shortcomings with variable analysis that he sees in social research. Herbert Blumer says "there is a conspicuous absence of rules, guides, limitations and prohibitions to govern the choice of variables." Overall he felt that variable analysis needed to be looked at more carefully and precisely to see if the variables are correct and connected to the social research at hand.

Generic variables Blumer does not find generic:

The frequent variable that stands for a class of object that is tied down to a given historical and cultural situation.

Abstract sociological categories. Example- "social integration"

Special set of class terms. Examples- "Age, time, authority"

Blumer believed these shortcomings are serious but not crucial, and that with increase experience they can be overcome. This address was meant to question how well does variable analysis is suited to the study of human group life in its fuller dimensions."

In 1939, Blumer published Critiques of Research in the Social Sciences: An Appraisal of Thomas and Znaniecki's The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, criticizing what at the time was a popular social theory.[9] Blumer claimed that Thomas and Znaniecki failed to properly distinguish between attitude as subjective and value as a societal collective element. He said they used the terms interchangeably, and therefore making the theory unreliable. It is difficult to disentangle subjective factors and objective correlates because the objective world is dealt with only to the extent that it enters subjective experiences.[30] Blumer said,

"This scheme declares that a value playing upon a pre-existing attitude gives rise to a new attitude, or an attitude playing upon a pre-existing value gives rise to a new value. With terms that are uncertain and not clearly disjunctive, the presumed causal relation becomes suspect."[31]

In conclusion, Blumer recognized that in society there was no clear distinction between attitude and value, and that even social theorists have difficulty distinguishing between the two.

Based on the work of Robert E. Park, Blumer, in a 1939 article, called to attention a new subfield of sociology: collective behavior. This now developed area of inquiry is devoted to the exploration of collective action and behavior that is not yet organized under an institutional structure or formation. Blumer was particularly interested in the spontaneous collective coordination that occurs when something that is unpredicted disrupt standardized group behavior. He saw the combination of events that follows such phenomena as a key factor in society's ongoing transformation.[3]

Blumer is well known for his connection with the famous sociologist George Herbert Mead. Blumer was a follower of Mead's work on symbolic interactionism and Mead heavily influenced his work. Mead transferred the subject field of social psychology to Blumer. One important aspect Blumer learned from Mead was that in order for us to understand the meaning of social actions, we must put ourselves in the others' shoes to truly understand what social symbols they feel to be important. However, Blumer did deviate from Mead's work. Blumer was a proponent of a more micro-focused approach to sociology and focused on the subjective consciousness and symbolic meanings of individuals.[4][20]

Similar to George Mead, sociologist Charles Ellwood also influenced the development of Herbert Blumer and symbolic interactionism. There are four prominent areas where Ellwood’s ideas can be found in both Blumer’s work and symbolic interactionism: interactionism, methodology, emotions, and group behavior. The concepts of “interstimulation and response,” “intercommunication,” and “coadaptation” function in Ellwood’s social psychology in the same way that “self-indications” and “interpretations” that are found in Blumer’s symbolic interactionism. There are six areas where Ellwood and Blumer are similar when addressing methodology: studying human behavior in context, a distain for the physical science method, understanding the people being studied, using sociology to assist humanity, using inductive reasoning, and avoiding hypotheses. Looking at their ideas on emotion, both Ellwood’s and Blumer’s ideas deal with the relationship between emotion and interaction, with Ellwood stating, all our social life and social behavior are not only embedded in feeling, but largely guided and controlled by feeling.” Similar to that, Blumer states that feeling is intrinsic to every social attitude.” Both Ellwood and Blumer were social nominalists and positioned that reality is reduced to properties of individuals and their interrelations.

Many have argued that Blumer’s theory is a simplified and distorted version of Mead’s. Many contemporary positions see “Blumerian Interactionism” as “old hat,“ because it is gender blind (as argued by feminists) and is too conservative. It is also contested that symbolic interaction needs to adopt an agenda that takes race, class and gender into consideration more. Moreover, it is argued that the social constructionist perspective of Blumerian interactionism provides an “over-socialized” account of human life, and downplays and ignores our unconscious. [32]

"The full expanse of human action isn't just following pre-established rules and patterns. New situations arise constantly." [4]

"Repetitive and standard actions are just as much the product of an interpretative process as are the ones based on creative thinking. It's social action that upholds the rules, not the rules which uphold the social action." [4]

"New joint action always arise out of a background of previous actions. We can't slice off a given action from its historical linkages." [4]

"The nature of an object...consists of the meaning that it has for the person for whom it is as object." [20]

Concerning the term self, "Nothing esoteric is meant by this expression. It merely means that a human being can be an object of his own action...he acts towards himself and guides himself in his actions towards others on the basis of the kind of object he is to himself." [20]

“It is the social process in group life that creates and upholds the rules, not the rules that create and uphold group life.” [20]

“A network or an institution does not function automatically because of some inner dynamics or system requirements; it functions because people at different points do something, and what they do is a result of how they define the situation in which they are called on to act.” [20]

Critiques of Research in the Social Sciences: An Appraisal of Thomas and Znaniecki's The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1939)

George Herbert Mead and Human Conduct (2004)

"Movies and Conduct" (1933)

One of Blumer's best-known studies, "Movies and Conduct" (1933), was part of the Payne Fund research project. The project, which included more than 18 social scientists who produced eleven published reports, was initiated out of fear about the effect movies might have on children and young adults. Blumer thus conducted an ethnographic, qualitative study on more than fifteen hundred college and high school students by asking them to write autobiographies of their movie-going experiences. His findings were that children and young adult spectators reported that they learned from movies life skills such as attitudes, hairstyles, how to kiss, and even how to pickpocket.[34]

^Blumer explains social interaction as a mutual presentation of actions by actors. He classifies social interactions into two categories, i.e., "symbolic interaction" and "non-symbolic interaction." The former is mediated by self-interaction, the latter is not. It has been thought that symbolic interaction is the equivalent of "the use of significant symbols," in Mead's terminology, and that non-symbolic interaction is the equivalent of Mead's "conversation of gestures." However, the greater precision of Kuwabara's analysis demonstrates the existence of at least two types of symbolic interaction, distinctly different from each other: symbolic interaction in which significant symbols do not yet exist but participants in the interaction are trying to call them into being, and symbolic interaction mediated by significant symbols called into being by participants in a preceding interaction. The latter is called "a real form of interaction" or transaction/joint action. Cf. Kuwabara T., and K. Yamaguchi, 2013, An Introduction to the Sociological Perspective of Symbolic Interactionism, The Joint Journal of the National Universities in Kyushu, Education and Humanities, 1(1), pp. 1-11.